(The following story by Glenn Kauth appeared on the Edmonton Sun website on July 11.)
EDMONTON — Luck and timing prevented yesterday’s CN train derailment at a Sherwood Park overpass from becoming deadly, police say.
Const. Wally Henry of the Strathcona County RCMP called it “very fortunate” that the 85-car train didn’t fall onto travellers on Highway 16 after hitting a stolen paving machine deliberately left on the tracks shortly after midnight.
“The possibilities – with the overpass being over a major highway as well as where the train derailed – the train could have easily come down on the highway from the bridge,” he said.
While a rupture in a locomotive’s fuel tank caused a brief fire, there were no hazardous goods on the train, which was heading west near Highway 21 when it hit the paver parked on the south side of the overpass.
“The containers were empty as well as containing consumer merchandise,” said CN spokesman Kevin Franchuk.
Jolene Legacy, 29, said she was in her trailer at a nearby mobile-home park when she heard a loud noise she thought was the sound of a train loading.
“I heard the bang, the trailer shook a little, and (when) I came outside I could see the spotlights on the bridge,” said Legacy.
“It was still on fire when I was out here.”
As she looked across the overpass, Legacy could see the train tilting off the tracks as well as a few cars that had fallen down the embankment.
It turned out the train had smashed into a paving machine used at a nearby construction site, where workers have been busy on the Highway 21 twinning project overseen by Aecon Construction and Materials.
Someone then left it on the tracks, an act Henry said that – if police end up finding the suspects – could result in a charge of mischief endangering life.
It’s an offence police often seek in cases where people tamper with someone’s brakes, he said.
For Legacy, the incident left her outraged.
“It’s crazy, and I’m really upset that it was so close,” said Legacy, whose home is a few hundred metres from the track.
“If there was a big explosion, we would have been evacuated at midnight.”
‘HORRENDOUS’
Another resident of the mobile-home park, who declined to give her name, almost came to tears when she considered how bad the accident could have been.
“It could have been Via Rail going by full of people,” she said. “That’s just horrendous.”
But while no one, including two people on the train, was injured, the incident did cause major headaches for both CN and drivers yesterday.
The stretch of Highway 16 between Cloverbar Road and Highway 21 was closed until about 6:30 p.m. yesterday to allow workers to remove debris, salvage the 12 cars and two locomotives that derailed, and replace damaged track.
Franchuk, meanwhile, wasn’t able to say yesterday how much the work would cost, how fast the train was going or whether the incident raises concerns about security on CN’s tracks.
“Let me stress – this was an act of vandalism,” he said.
For Legacy, she just hopes police find whoever left the machine on the tracks.
“It’s scary,” she said.